When Cherry Blossoms Fall

Learning to appreciate impermanence is the delicate takeaway of Goldsaito and Imamura’s conceptual intergenerational tale. In the cold of early spring, young Yuna climbs a gnarled cherry tree and asks her grandmother when it will bloom. Hībāchan answers, “We wait for so long for the blossoms to appear, but then they fall so quickly. Mono-no-aware, ne?” The phrase, Yuna learns, is a Japanese expression celebrating fleeting loveliness: the blossoms “become more beautiful because you know they will soon be gone.” It’s a concept the child struggles to grasp until the cherry tree blooms during the spring when Hībāchan passes, the wind carrying away the blossoms until only one remains. Decisive-feeling gouache and watercolor brushwork is delightfully tactile, the windblown grasses and cherry blossom explosions conveying nature through texture and movement in a thoughtful picture book that considers multiple seasons of ephemerality. An author’s note concludes. Ages 6–8. (Feb.)